User-friendly?

[Pascal Bleser]

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Ben Segall wrote:
>> Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
[...]
>> But 'search' does an __unintelligent__ comparison (e.g., 'dvd' in
>> automatic mode shows all the packages which contain the string
>> 'dvd' as part of the package_name). For those users who DON'T know
>> what package_names they are looking for, I believe it would be much
>> more user-friendly if "smart" could for example assist the user who
>> asks: "What packages do I need to have, if I simply want to play a
>> DVD ?"
>
> I suppose this could be done using something like yum's group*
> commands, but the repositories would have to support it and say what
> packages are used to play a dvd. You could also do "smart search 'dvd
> play'" do search for dvd players as search looks in the summaries too.
> To be safe you can also do "smart search dvd" as most of the linux
> players do many things and therefore only 1 in my config actually has
> 'dvd player.'

Well.. yes.. and no. It's still not the same as having real categorization support.
I myself would prefer package "tagging" (think of del.icio.us or flickr), which is kind of what the
"virtual" "Provides" are doing for RPM, but it heavily relies on what a distribution's packaging
conventions are.

We would need a common, standardized list of tags throughout all distributions - like it's done for
.desktop categories, which is a freedesktop.org standard.

As it's something all distributions would have to comply with, it's most probably not going to
happen anytime soon. LSB is already hard enough to push (at least with non-SUSE), and packaging has
always been an area where every single distribution thinks it has to do its own (package names,
subpackage splitting, RPM group names, etc etc...).

We would need to have additional information about what "feature" or "type of application" a package
provides (if at all, as that doesn't really apply to libraries), e.g. "dvd player", "audio player",
"video player", "audio recording", etc...
But I don't see any chance of implementing that either, specifically not in Smart, as it needs to
work with every supported distribution and package manager backend (rpm/dpkg/slackware).

Furthermore, it has to be provided by the all supported repository metadata formats (apt-rpm,
apt-deb, urpmi, slackware, rpm-md/yum, ....). And that's where the idea ends. It will never happen
there either. Inventing yet another repository format is definately the worst thing to do, we
already have too many of them out there.

The only realistic chance is to use the "Provides" information, at least with RPM (I suppose dpkg
has something similar), as far as all those repository metadata formats actually include that piece
of information. They most probably do, as it's also used to solve "virtual" dependencies.
- From there on, those "feature tagging" names must be standardized throughout all distributions, with
an initiative similar to LSB and freedesktop.org

Then you could do something like the following with Smart:

  smart install-feature "dvd player"

=> pop up a list/menu of available options, with summary, select one, install with deps

This kind of goes into what the "alternatives" system provides.

just my 0.02? thoughts on it

cheers
- --
  -o) Pascal Bleser     http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
  /\\ <pascal.bleser at skynet.be>       <guru at unixtech.be>
 _\_v   FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels
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